Chapter 94: The Shape of Being Wanted
Eva didn't understand what it meant to be touched like that. To be adored so softly, so carefully. Her past life hadn't taught her that. It had taught her how to win, how to survive, how to outwork death itself.
But not how to be wanted.
Now, she was.
Even if she didn't know what it meant yet.
Even if her small hands were still too unsteady to hold the hearts already reaching for her.
It started one quiet morning, long before breakfast, when the light outside still painted the sky in watercolor hues. Eva was in her room, curled beneath her quilt, holding tightly to a worn copy of her poetry book. She had barely slept. Her thoughts kept drifting back to Seraphina — her Ina — whose warmth she could still feel on her cheek, whose voice lingered like soft music in her ears.
She remembered the way Seraphina whispered her name before she fell asleep. The way she stroked her curls with such patience. The way she never pulled away when her little moonbeam clung too tightly.
That morning, she rose with a singular clarity, padded barefoot into her mére — aunt's room, and whispered, "I want to see Ina."
Mére — Aunt Vivienne, hair tousled and eyes barely open, blinked at her in confusion. "Darling, it's not even six. Go back to bed."
Eva shook her head, the seriousness in her eyes unrelenting. "Please. I need to."
Vivienne sighed, pushed the covers off, and rose. "Alright, alright. I''ll get ready."
When she arrived at the Langford estate, Eva darted from her electric toy car before it stopped rolling fully, slippers half on, heart thudding. She was five years old, too young to understand the complexities of devotion, but old enough to feel it like gravity in her chest.
She found Seraphina in the garden, still in her robe, sipping tea under the camellia tree. The older girl looked up in mild surprise, then smiled when she saw the wild - haired little girl marching toward her like she'd crossed an ocean.
"Eva?" she said, gently placing her cup on the table. "What — ?"
Eva didn't stop to answer. She climbed into her lap without ceremony, hugged her tightly around the waist, and buried her face into the silk folds of Seraphina's robe.
"I missed you," she murmured, voice trembling. "I woke up and you weren't there."
Seraphina blinked, caught off guard by the rawness. "Little one…"
"I had a dream," Eva continued, breath hitching. "That you were gone. Everyone said you had to go away. They said I couldn't see you again. They were wrong, right? You're not going to leave me, are you, Yue, my Ina?"
Seraphina closed her eyes. For a moment, she didn't speak. Then, softly, she kissed the top of Eva's head. "I'm not going anywhere, little moon."
But the adults were talking.
Whispers behind closed doors, shared looks, concerned expressions when Eva clung too long or cried too hard. Her parents Evelyn and Vivienne watched with a growing blend of awe and unease. She was more than just attached — Eva adored Seraphina in a way that felt… too intense for five.
"She's getting too used to her," Evelyn said one night. "I've never seen her this fixated."
"She's not just fixated," Vivienne replied, arms folded. "She's bonded. And Seraphina "Yue" indulges her completely."
"She's ten that Langford girl," Reginald "Eva's pretend papa" added, tone uncertain. "That's not a child anymore."
"And Eva," her mother Evelyn whispered, "Eva clings to her like she's air."
"I know," Vivienne sighed. "I know."
But when they brought it up gently to Eva — tentatively suggesting maybe she spend a little less time with Seraphina, maybe try making other friends — Eva's reaction was immediate.
"No," she said, shaking her head. Then, softly, as if already heartbroken, "Don't take her from me."
Her mére — aunt Vivi knelt beside her. "Eva, sweetheart, no one's taking anyone —"
"You are!" she sobbed. "You're trying to keep her away! You said I should play with other children, but I don't want to! I don't like other children — I like Yue, my Ina!"
Her tears came fast, and when Vivienne reached out to hold her, she ran. Driving her solar panel electric toy car.
Straight to Seraphina.
When she arrived, cheeks tear - streaked and hair tangled, she looked like a fallen star desperate to find its sky.
Seraphina, seated in her room reading by the window, looked up in surprise as Eva burst in. "Eva —?"
Without a word, Eva flung herself into her lap, straddling her, arms tight around her neck. Her tears soaked into the fabric of Seraphina's blouse as she kissed her cheek again and again in between sobs.
"I don't want to be without you," she cried. "They said I should play with other kids but I don't want to — I just want you! Just you!"
Seraphina froze.
Not because of the words, but because of the feeling behind them.
Eva was trembling against her, breathless and desperate, the kind of desperate that felt like she'd been drowning and only just found air.
"Shh," Seraphina whispered, stroking her back. "I'm here, I'm right here."
But Eva wasn't done.
In a cracked, poetic whisper, she began to recite:
"Amo eam — flamma capillorum in aura,
undae rubrae quae cordis mei pulsum tangunt.
Oculi eius, pallidi, rubore noctis tincti,
vident me, fractam, et tamen vivam."
"I love her — the flame of her hair in the breeze,
red waves that touch the beat of my heart.
Her eyes, pale, tinted with the redness of night,
see me — broken, yet still alive."
Her voice broke with the second stanza, lips brushing Seraphina's cheek between every line. Her little hands held Seraphina's face like it was too sacred to let go.
"Solam eam audio in silentio clamare,
et solam eam sentio in noctis frigidis bracchiis.
Nulla manus nisi eius
potest me tangere sine dolore."
"I hear only her crying in silence,
and feel only her in the cold arms of the night.
No hand but hers
can touch me without pain."
Seraphina's breath caught.
Behind the doorway, unknown to either of them, Mère — Aunt Vivienne stood frozen, phone raised, jaw slack.
She hadn't followed Eva to spy — she'd followed out of concern. But what she saw… was something else entirely.
The child — her child, her brilliant, old - souled, battle-scarred little niece "daughter"— clinging to Seraphina "Yue" like she was salvation. Reciting poetry with a heartbreak so raw it stopped breath.
The kisses. The words. The heartbreak.
"Quis ausus est me ab illa separare?
Mortem millies eligam
quam videre diem sine lumine oculorum eius."
"Who dares to separate me from her?
I would choose death a thousand times
before seeing a day without the light of her eyes."
Vivienne hit record without thinking.
She was stunned — not out of mockery, but out of awe.
Eva's voice, hoarse from crying, now softened as she clutched Seraphina closer, fingers in her long auburn hair.
"Anima mea — scissa et suspirans —
extenditur ad eam sicut flos ad solem morientem.
Vitam meam libenter ponam
pro uno osculo, uno flatu caloris eius."
"My soul — torn and sighing —
reaches for her like a flower to the dying sun.
I would gladly give my life
for one kiss, one breath of her warmth."
And finally, her head pressed to Seraphina's shoulder as her words slowed to a murmur:
"Et cum abest, tempus non movetur —
vincula aeternitatis premunt pectus meum.
Clamo ad caelum:
'Da mihi eam, vel tolle spiritum meum!'"
"And when she is gone, time does not move —
the chains of eternity press upon my chest.
I cry to the heavens:
"Give her to me, or take my breath!""
Eva hiccuped once, then sighed, still straddling Seraphina's waist, utterly exhausted from her crying. Her tiny arms, trembling moments ago, now went limp around Seraphina's neck.
With a last whispered breath, she finished:
"O, si sciret quanto dolore vivo,
quam ardenter in flamma desiderii torqueor —
illa sola, dulcis medicina mea,
languorem meum in pacem vertit."
"Oh, if she knew the pain in which I live,
how fiercely I burn in the fire of longing —
she alone, my sweet remedy,
turns my weakness into peace."
Silence.
Seraphina held her close, stunned still. She didn't speak. She just ran her hand slowly down Eva's back, again and again, until the girl's breathing deepened and the tears turned to tiny gasps of sleep.
Only then did she look up — and see Aunt Vivienne.
The older woman blinked, then pressed a finger to her lips with a shaky smile and mouthed, I'm sending this to her mother.
Seraphina rolled her eyes softly but didn't speak. She returned her gaze to Eva's sleeping face, felt the warmth of her breath on her collarbone.
Eva had cried herself to sleep in her arms before. But this time was different.
This time… Seraphina felt the weight of it in her chest, too.
Later that night, when the house was quiet and Eva was sleeping peacefully in her bed, Seraphina sat by the window with her journal.
She wrote in silence.
Then paused.
Then flipped back to the page where she had scribbled a single line from memory:
"She doesn't know what it means to be wanted."
And beneath it, she added:
But she wants me like she already knows.
And part of me wants to be wanted by her, too.